


ain't dying to offend you

by monopolizers



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Marijuana, Passive-aggression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 04:49:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4593429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monopolizers/pseuds/monopolizers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Welcome to the neighborhood,</i> the note read in Harry's bouncy script. <i>Hope you enjoy your stay</i>. It wasn't signed, but it didn't matter. Zayn knew who it was from, and Harry knew that Zayn knew it was from him.</p><p>Passive-aggressive fuck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ain't dying to offend you

**Author's Note:**

> in this fic characters smoke weed and think about consensual sex they've had under the influence of weed. tbh I'm not really sure how else to tag/warn for this so if you want more detailed content notes please drop me a comment and I will help you out.
> 
> title from Paul Westerberg's Dyslexic Heart.

He wondered why he didn't see anyone at the door right up until he saw the cake on the ground.

It was covered in tinfoil; on top of it there was a little note fluttering in the wind.

 _Welcome to the neighborhood,_ it read in Harry's bouncy script. _Hope you enjoy your stay_. It wasn't signed, but it didn't matter. Zayn knew who it was from, and Harry knew that Zayn knew it was from him.

Passive-aggressive fuck.

He took it inside and put it on his dining table, unwilling to open it. For an irrational moment he wondered if Harry had actually put bugs in it and they would crawl out when he lifted the foil. But of course that wasn't true. Harry was an arse, but he wasn't cruel, and besides Zayn had felt the heft of the cake as he'd lifted it. He took the foil off and relaxed. It looked normal; it was round and the frosting was a pale pink, which was fairly obnoxious but about as rude as Harry got. 

It was only when he'd cut a piece and put it in his mouth that he realised he'd made a huge mistake. He spat it out--it was _bitter_ , unbelievably so, and even though the texture was fine, there was something grainy in it that made Zayn want to wash his mouth out. That fucking passive-aggressive arse. Zayn knew he shouldn't have eaten the cake. 

When he brought it in to the studio, one of the assistants, a pretty Asian girl named Rachel, tasted it before he could warn her off it. Her face twisted up. "Dude," she said in that unaccountably lazy Californian drawl everyone down here seemed to carry no matter their ethnicity. "Who the fuck put kale in your cake, Zayn?" _Kale_. Of course. Only Harry would do something as annoyingly idiosyncratic as that. 

The other assistant, a handsome guy named Chris, claimed not to believe her. When he tried a piece, he looked barely a second away from throwing up. 

"Man," Rachel said. She shook her head. "Someone must be, like, _really_ pissed at you."

Fucking Harry. 

 

\--

 

Well, of course Zayn had to get back at him. When he got home later that day he rolled a joint and began searching for the ugliest, most obnoxious bong possible. Harry wasn't a big smoker and to Zayn's knowledge he'd never smoked from a bong. It would be the perfect thank you for the cake. It was just even better luck that Zayn knew Harry's (pretentious, generally obnoxious) taste perfectly. Harry would hopefully be confounded and annoyed by it; he could just picture the moue of irritation on his pink mouth when he opened the box, which Zayn would--of course--wrap perfectly and have delivered to his house. No tinfoil here, no thank you.

Of course smoking up and thinking about Harry's mouth had been a mistake; once he got started he couldn't stop thinking about the times they'd gotten high and gotten off. When they'd been younger Harry had refused to smoke anything himself. He'd always demanded blowbacks, first from Louis, and then when that had gotten weird, from Zayn. In a group it had never gotten any further than that. When they were alone, though, they'd been all over each other. Zayn could feel himself getting hard just thinking about it, the slow, languorous way they'd rubbed off on each other, the times they hadn't even touched but just wanked off looking at each other. The way Harry's mouth had looked red and swollen while sucking his cock, and the way Harry bit his lip when Zayn went down on him in turn. Harry hadn't been the only guy Zayn had ever been with but he'd definitely been the most enthusiastic. Maybe even the best. He might even have been the best sex Zayn had _ever_ had, though Zayn hated that idea. He was so annoyed with himself for going down this path that he refused to jerk off, even when he thought about the time Harry'd come in his pants while Zayn palmed his cock through his jeans and whispered dirty talk in his ear. His own cock throbbed; he ignored it. 

Finally he found a truly grotesque one that looked like one of those alien heads Harry hated (he claimed they gave him nightmares). With a sense of glee, muted by the weed, he ordered it.

 

\--

 

Three days later, it arrived, even more ugly than Zayn had seen. He called Shareena and asked her if she could gift wrap it and have it delivered to Harry's. He wrote a note:

_Haz,_

_Thanks for the lovely welcome to the neighborhood. Shared the cake with friends and they loved it. Hope you get some good uses out of this._.

He left it unsigned and asked Shareena to stick it on the box.

"And where do you want it to go, again?" she asked slowly.

"Harry's." 

She didn't say anything, but he thought she might be judging him. 

"He gave me a cake made of kale," he said defensively. 

"Right," she said. "Well...all right. This note is a little....passive-aggressive, don't you think?" 

"Yeah," he said. She sounded like she was waiting for an answer. "He gave me a kale cake, okay?" He was allowed to be petty if he wanted to. 

"All right," she said. "I'll make it happen." 

"You're the best, babes," he said. He hung up. He felt ridiculously excited, a child who had pulled a prank and was waiting to see its execution. 

 

\--

 

Two days later he got a text from Doniya. _Wtf is on Harry's insta?????_ she asked, like she expected him to check Harry's social media much anymore (he did, actually, but not as often as one might think).

 _idk?_

_gooooooo look @ it_

It was the fucking alien bong, in black and white, captioned just with the word _Friends_.

 _Fucking_ Harry.

 

\--

 

A couple of days later he was leashing up the pup one of his friends let him take for a little while, an adorable, excited little chocolate lab who loved going on walks. Zayn loved it too; he'd thought for ages that London was the place for him, though it was grey and cold and the sun rarely came out. He thought that he'd loved it there, the rain, the bustle, the harried lifestyle. LA was different. It was stranger, shinier, but it was slower too. And there were people of all sorts around and they didn't give a fuck who he was. He could see why Harry loved it. He wished they were talking, really talking; he wanted to say that to Harry, to tell him he understood now.

He stepped outside, leash in hand, and froze; Harry was on his lawn, dressed in one of his ridiculous YSL shirts and those skinny jeans Zayn had always hated wearing because they squeezed his nuts too tight. He looked good, though he always looked good; in his hand was a small box, gift-wrapped in gold, with a card--a _card!_ \--taped to it.

For a moment they stared at each other, both struck into silence.

Then Zayn said, with a forced casualness, "Fancy seeing you here, mate." 

"Yeah," Harry said. "Was in the neighborhood, thought I'd drop by and thank you." 

"You live in the neighborhood," Zayn said, cursing himself as it came out of his mouth. It sounded too invested, too whiny. He should have taken a moment to come up with something snottier. 

"So do you," Harry said with exaggerated slowness.

"Yeah, true. Well, thanks for the...cake," Zayn said. 

"Thanks for the bong," Harry replied.

They stood locked in stalemate.

"What's in the box?" 

Harry looked at it. "Hair dye."

Actual hair dye, or something that would ruin his hair? Zayn managed to not say it out loud. "Thoughtful," he said instead, nodding. 

"Yeah, I've been told I am."

"Have you?" 

"By many people." 

Zayn gritted his teeth. This fucker always managed to rub the wrong nerve with him. "I guess none of them ever got a kale cake from you, then," he said, exerting great effort to keep his tone level.

"Well, no one's ever sent me such an ugly bong before, either," Harry returned in the same tone. 

They'd both stepped forward; now they were close, face to face. He'd forgotten how soft Harry's mouth looked up close. He jerked his eyes away from it up to meet Harry smirking at him. "You must not be this way with them, then."

"What way?" Harry said. They were standing toe to toe now. Zayn had thought they'd be at raised voice, but instead they were speaking low, voices hushed and proper. Well, they were in public.

Zayn clutched the leash. "Such a passive-aggressive little _shit_ ," he said, poking Harry in the chest with each word. They locked gazes, and for an electric moment, he thought Harry was going to shove him. Every atom in his body thrilled to it, the anticipation. 

They stood for a moment; then Harry's mouth turned up in a grin, and he started to laugh, and then Zayn started to laugh too. What idiots they both were! Harry had to sit on the ground after a moment from laughing too much, and then Zayn joined him.

"Fuck," Harry said, wiping the tears from his eyes. "I am really sorry about that cake, you know." 

"Yeah?"

"Oh, yeah. When you moved in I thought you were just being--rude. Passive-aggressive, I don't know."

"A lot of people live here," Zayn pointed out.

Harry shrugged. "Yeah, but you haven't been in a band with any of these people and then left halfway through a tour to start a solo career." Ouch. But Zayn supposed he deserved that. 

"I sent you the bong because I thought you'd hate it," he admitted. "I was so pissed when you put it on Instagram." 

Harry threw his head back and laughed. The sun caught the highlights in his hair. "I knew it! I knew you'd see it." Then he grew serious. "It was really ugly, though. I couldn't make myself throw it out but I put it in a back room." 

"Why couldn't you throw it out?" Zayn wondered. 

Harry's cheeks grew red. "It reminded me of, uh. Well." He turned away, his hair a curtain that hid his face. Zayn's hand reached out without his permission to brush it away behind Harry's cheek. Harry's eyes widened at his touch.

"Those times we used to..." Zayn let the sentence trail off. Harry knew what he meant.

"Yeah." 

"Reminded me of it too," Zayn admitted. They were sitting cross-legged, facing each other; now he shifted, got onto his knees. His hand had moved to Harry's shoulder. Somewhere to his side he could feel the leash tug at his other hand as the puppy jumped around and barked, wondering why they hadn't gone for the walk yet. He ignored it for a second.

"You remembered?" Harry's tone was low, raspy, the way he sounded when he was aroused.

Zayn couldn't have stopped looking at his mouth if something had exploded next to them. "Of course," he said.

When he leaned forward, Harry met him in the middle. They kissed for a long moment, then two, broke away to smile at each other. Harry laughed. "Fuck me, this is weird," he said.

"Yeah," Zayn agreed.

"The boys are going to be so mad."

"They are," Zayn said. He leaned in again, and Harry didn't stop him, kissed him back just as hotly. 

When he pulled back, he could see how wet and pink Harry's mouth was. "Why'd you stop?" Harry said.

"Gotta walk this guy," Zayn said, raising the hand with the leash. He stood up, and Harry stood with him.

"Can I come along?" 

"Of course," Zayn said. Harry dropped the gold box with no regard for where it landed. "What was actually in it?" 

Harry looked confused for a moment. "Oh, you mean the box? It was a hair thinning cream."

Zayn didn't process the words for a moment. "A hair...thinning...Harry, god _damn_ it." It was too late to smack him; Harry'd skipped out of reach, laughing merrily. Zayn followed him. He couldn't keep a smile off his face.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired via [this post](http://benwinstagram.tumblr.com/post/126875748721/i-need-harry-passive-aggressively-baking-zayn-a#_=_)
> 
> I don't smoke weed and I don't know a lot about bongs I just searched "ugly bongs" and went w the first one that came up
> 
> I'm very interested to see how LA Zarry actually plays out; something tells me it won't be like this
> 
> this was originally posted [here](http://dicktrick.tumblr.com/post/126886291277/benwinstagram-i-need-harry-passive-aggressively) on my [tumblr](http://dicktrick.tumblr.com/). You should hit me up bc I love talkin to people!
> 
> comments are also v appreciated. thank you for reading


End file.
